McChurch - The War Against Dissent

http://www.counterpunch.org/

September 17, 2007

Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom

By MARJORIE COHN

One week after the renowned legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was offered the position of dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine, Chancellor Michael Drake withdrew the offer, informing Duke Law Professor Chemerinsky he had proved to be "too politically controversial." Chemerinsky is one of the most eminent law teachers and constitutional law scholars in the country. Author of a leading treatise on constitutional law, he has written four books and more than 100 law review articles. In 2005, he was named by Legal Affairs as one of "the top 20 legal thinkers in America."

This is the latest chapter in the post September 11 attack on academic freedom under the guise of protecting security. Two weeks after 9/11, former White House spokeman Ari Fleischer cautioned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do." The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group founded by Lynne Cheney and Senator Joe Lieberman, accused universities of being the weak link in the war on terror; it included the names of 117 "un-American" professors, students and staff members. A few months later, a blacklisting Internet cite called Campus Watch was launched. It publishes dossiers on scholars who criticize U.S. Middle East policy and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Earlier this year, the Bruin Alumni Association at UCLA offered students $100 to tape left-wing professors.

In 2003, the American Association of University Professors recalled the "still-vivid memories of the McCarthy era" and warned of the perils of sacrificing academic freedom in the war on terror. The premise of their report was that "freedom of inquiry and the open exchange of ideas are crucial to the nation's security, and that the nation's security and, ultimately, its well-being are damaged by practices that discourage or impair freedom."

At a 2004 conference on academic freedom at UC Berkeley, Professor Beshara Doumani observed, "Academic freedom in the United States is facing its most important threat since the McCarthy era of the 1950s. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, government agencies and private organizations have been subjecting universities to an increasingly sophisticated infrastructure of surveillance, intervention, and control. In the name of the war against terrorism, civil liberties have been seriously eroded, open debate limited, and dissent stifled."

Art. 9, § 9 of the California Constitution, which sets forth the powers and duties of the Regents of the University of California, provides, "The university shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents and in the administration of its affairs."

Drake denied he was influenced by pressure from donors, politicians or the UC California Board of Regents. Yet psychology professor Elizabeth Loftus, a member of the search committee, told the Los Angeles Times that Drake told the committee he was compelled to make the decision by outside forces whom he did not identify. Her account was confirmed by a second member of the committee, who talked to the Times on condition of anonymity.

Chemerinsky has handled several cases in the appellate courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and has testified many times before congressional and state legislative committees, including before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings. Chemerinsky has represented Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA agent whose identity was revealed by members of the Bush administration; a Guantánamo detainee asserting his right to habeas corpus; a man sentenced to 50 years-to-life under California's three strikes law; and a person challenging the Texas Ten Commandments monument.

UCI's November 16, 2006 press release announcing the inauguration of the new law school said, "UCI law graduates will be particularly encouraged to pursue careers in public service, including non-governmental organizations and philanthropic agencies. As part of their training, UCI law students will provide legal services to people who are unable to afford counsel. They also will be encouraged to pursue public interest law through programs focusing on underserved communities." Chemerinsky is devoted to public service as well as legal scholarship and education. He was elected by voters to be a Commissioner and chaired the Los Angeles Elected Charter Reform Commission; the new Charter was adopted by voters in 1999. He also spearheaded the Los Angeles Independent Analysis of the Board of Inquiry Report on the Rampart Police Scandal, Prepared at the Request of the Police Protective League, September 2000.

Untold numbers of law students have been helped through law school and the bar exam by Chemerinsky, including National Lawyers Guild Student Vice President Teague Briscoe, who said, "Chermerinsky on Constitutional Law saved my life in law school and I loved him doing the Professional Responsibility lectures but, most of all, I really dug that he was a progressive law prof who defends an unpopular client."

David Dow, Adjunct lecturer at the Annenberg School of Journalism and former veteran CBS correspondent who frequently interviewed Chemerinksy on legal issues, said, "I can't imagine any considerations that would outweigh the prospect of launching a law school with an internationally-known, highly-respected, fair-minded expert at the helm. Apart from his legal and professional credentials, Erwin has demonstrated an ability to get along well with colleagues and the community wherever he's been." Dow's words were echoed by Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer, who called Chemerinsky "the nicest person in legal education." Conservative law professor Douglas Kmiec wrote of Chemerinsky, "there is no person I would sooner trust to be a guardian of my constitutional liberty. Nor is there anyone I would sooner turn to for a candid, intellectually honest appraisal of an academic proposal."
One of the "controversial" matters Drake cited to Chemerinsky was an August op-ed the professor wrote in the Los Angeles Times criticizing a proposed regulation by then-Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to shorten the time death row inmates have to file habeas corpus petitions. In an op-ed in the Sep. 14 Times, Chemerinsky explained, "There are more than 275 individuals on death row in California without lawyers for their post-convictions proceedings. The effect of the new rule would be that many individuals, including innocent ones, would not get the chance to have their cases reviewed in federal court."

Drake's action, which sends a clear message to academics that they must avoid speaking out or writing about controversial issues, is a threat to academic freedom. As Chemerinsky wrote, "Without academic freedom, the reality is that many faculty members would be chilled and timid in expressing their views, and the discussion that is essential for the advancement of thought would be lost."

Hundreds of faculty, students and staff at UC Irvine are urging reinstatement of Chemerinsky. In an open letter to Drake, they wrote, "We are disturbed because of the deep violation both of the integrity of the university and of the intrusion of outrageously one-sided politics and unacceptable ideological considerations into a hiring process that should be driven by academic excellence, administrative experience, leadership capacity, and personal integrity."

Chancellor Michael Drake should immediately reinstate Professor Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the UC Irvine Law School.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. Her articles are archived at http://www.marjoriecohn.com/

To Find McChurch, Follow the Money!

Published on Thursday, September 6, 2007 by the Associated Press

Embattled DePaul Prof Norman Finkelstein Agrees to Resign

by Don Babwin

CHICAGO - A DePaul University professor who has drawn criticism for accusing some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust agreed Wednesday to resign immediately “for everybody’s sake.”

University officials and political science professor Norman Finkelstein issued a statement announcing the resignation, which came as about 100 protesters gathered outside the dean’s office to support him.

Finkelstein was denied tenure in June after spending six years on DePaul’s faculty, and his remaining class was cut by DePaul last month.

His most recent book, “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History,” is largely an attack on Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz’s “The Case for Israel.” In his book, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.

Dershowitz, who threatened to sue Finkelstein’s publisher for libel, had urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein’s tenure bid.

Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, said in the statement that he believes the tenure decision was “tainted” by external pressures but praised the university’s “honorable role of providing a scholarly haven for me the past six years.”

The school denied that outside parties influenced the decision to deny Finkelstein tenure. The school’s portion of the statement called Finkelstein “a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher.”

Finkelstein called that acknowledgment the most important part of the statement.

“I felt finally I had gotten what was my due and that maybe it was time, for everybody’s sake, that I move on,” he said at a news conference after a morning rally staged by students and faculty who carried signs and chanted “stop the witch hunt.”

Finkelstein said, “DePaul students rose to dazzling spiritual heights in my defense that should be the envy of and an example for every university in the United States.”

The professor would not discuss financial terms of the resignation agreement, which he said was confidential, but noted that it does not bar him from speaking out about issues that concern him, including “the unfairness of the tenure process.”

He also said he doesn’t know what he’ll do next but came to realize before Wednesday “that the atmosphere had become so poisoned that it was virtually impossible for me to carry on at DePaul.”

Dershowitz, too, was critical of the school. “DePaul looks like they caved into pressure,” he said in a telephone interview. “The idea of describing him as a scholar trades truth for convenience. He’s a man who is a propagandist and is not a scholar.”

Still, Dershowitz said, “I’m happy he’s out of academia. Let him do his ranting on street corners.”

Dozens of supporters wearing T-shirts that read: “We Are All Professor Finkelstein” wondered about the long-term effects on the school.

“I think there’s just going to be a longstanding sentiment of an injustice here,” said Thomas Bellino, a 22-year-old student who has taken classes from Finkelstein.

Ronald Edwards, an untenured biology professor, said he was concerned, too.

“I think my colleagues and I need to ask if we get tenure at DePaul, is that something to be proud of? Maybe the answer is yes, but we need information before we can answer that question to be yes.” And, he said, “Parents of students should ask themselves, ‘Do I send my kid to a school where professorships are dubious, in terms of hiring and firing?’”

© 2007 The Associated Press

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Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/06/3669/

McChurch - Down the Tubes with John McCain!

John McCain Tells Zionist Group He is Christian, 'Proudly Pro-Israel'

Bob Allen
07-19-07

U.S. Senator John McCain, who has had problems winning over religious conservatives in his run for the GOP presidential nomination, showed up Tuesday at a meeting of Christian Zionists to declare himself a Christian and "proudly pro-Israel."

We are so fortunate, as a nation, that the wheels have come off the McCain campaign…Sen. McCain is stuck in a time warp that peaked eight years ago…He gets an endorsement from Jerry Falwell (rest his soul!), and he up and dies on him…It is the “proudly pro Israel” part that alerts me…

McChurch is in a bad way at the moment…It has married the Republican Party but finds itself without a standard bearer who is willing to carry its water…Stick a fork in him! Romney looks like your best bet for the wedge issues LOL!

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

McCain, an Episcopalian who when at home in Arizona attends North Phoenix Baptist Church, has sought recently to repair his image with the Christian Right--a key Republican voting bloc--tarnished largely by an angry outburst seven years ago when he termed movement icons Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance."

McCain appeared to have made peace with Falwell before the Moral Majority founder's death in May, delivering a commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University in 2006. But conventional wisdom says the senator still has a long way to go to atone for past sins like opposing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and sponsorship of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill in 2002 that Christian broadcasters like James Dobson said would stifle what they could tell voters prior to an election.

McCain, who doesn't talk as much about his own faith as some other presidential candidates, got personal in what was billed as a "surprise" visit to a Washington gathering of Christians United for Israel convened by San Antonio pastor and author John Hagee.

"As some in this audience may know, I spent several years as a prisoner of war, a time when all my freedoms were rescinded," McCain said, referring to his five-and-a-half years as a POW during the Vietnam War. "And yet it was my very faith in a Supreme Being that sustained me and strengthened me while at the hands of my captors."

NBC reported that people attending Hagee's gathering didn't like President Bush using the word "occupation" to describe Israel's activities in Palestinian territories during Wednesday's White House briefing. McCain didn't directly criticize Bush, who defeated him for the Republican nomination in 2000, but he gave the pro-Israel crowd a message it wanted to hear.

McCain said the bond between Israel and America is not just strategic but "a moral one."

"To be proudly pro-American and pro-Israeli is not to hold conflicting loyalties," McCain said in his prepared text. "It is about defending the principles that both countries hold dear. That is why today I stand as I believe so many of you do: a Christian, proudly pro-American and proudly pro-Israel."

McCain also criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom Hagee compares to Hitler and views as a threat to both Israel and the United States. In a book last year Hagee suggested a coming nuclear showdown between Iran and Israel could set the stage for the biblical Battle of Armageddon and Second Coming of Christ.

McCain called Iran "the world's chief state sponsor of international terrorism" that defines itself "by hostility to Israel and the United States."

"It is simply tragic that millennia of proud Persian history have culminated in a government today that cannot be counted among those of the world's civilized nations," McCain said. (Iran was called Persia in biblical times.)

"When the president of Iran calls for Israel to be wiped off of the map, or asks for a world without Zionism, or suggests that Israel's Jewish population return to Europe, or calls the Holocaust a myth, it is clear that we are dealing with an evil man and a very dangerous regime," McCain said.

McCain said Tehran's "continued pursuit of nuclear weapons clearly poses an unacceptable risk." (Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.) McCain called for economic sanctions against Iran, and said the possibility of military action "must remain on the table."

"Military action isn't our preference," McCain said. "It remains, as it always must, the last option. We have some way to go diplomatically before we need to contemplate other measures. But it is a simple observation of reality that there is only one thing worse than a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear armed Iran. The regime must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world."

McCain also said withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq would be a mistake.

"The situation in Iraq is very difficult, and the temptation is to wash our hands of a messy situation," he said. "To follow this impulse, however, portends catastrophe, for Iraq, Israel and the United States."

McCain said "a precipitous American withdrawal" risks "all-out civil war and the emergence of a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, inviting intervention from Iraq's neighbors and the potential for region-wide conflict."

"We must do all in our power to prevail," he said.

McCain said he is encouraged by recent talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. "We also must ensure that Israel's people can live in safety until a Palestinian leadership truly committed to peace emerges," he added. "No moral nation--neither Israel nor America--can allow terrorists to chart the political course of its people."

"And to speak of terrorism is also to speak of Hezbollah," McCain continued. "Israel's chance for enduring peace with Lebanon resides in a government that has a monopoly on authority within its country. That means no independent militias, no Hezbollah fighters, no weapons and equipment flowing to Hezbollah. Yet neither the Lebanese Army nor the international force there is prepared or willing to take on Hezbollah. So long as that is the case, the current pause is likely to enable Hezbollah to regroup, reconstitute and rearm. There is one bottom line: to achieve lasting peace, sooner or later, one way or another, Hezbollah must be disarmed."

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

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